C. E. Murphy - No Dominion - A Garrison Report

Then the respite was over and the fight was on us again. She was right-handed an’ I was a lefty, so we covered each other’s backs and hacked down everything from normal-looking people to stone-footed giants that rose right up outta the earth itself. The rapier never lost its edge, not even when it slammed into granite so hard it sent shakes up my arm. One of the giants finally came up right between us, knocking our horses away from each other. I didn’t see her again after that.

All at once I was fighting behind Cernunnos, though. I got a look at him, and wanted to take another. He wasn’t even pretending to be human anymore. That crown of antlers had burst through, ivory wrapping around a skull distorted way outta shape. Not quite a full-on stag, but something so close to it that the blazing green eyes were disturbing in its face. So was the way his gums pulled back from teeth that shouldn’t be sharp, but were. His neck an’ shoulders were thicker, and his arms brawnier. He was using the short silver sword like a machete, hackin’ down everything within reach. There were too damned many of ‘em, that was all. Just enough to keep him away from the Morrígan, an’ I didn’t think that was luck on her part.

I started feeling a grin like the rest of the Hunt was wearing stretch over my own face. I brought Imelda around so we could flank the Master’s right-hand doll. Nobody was looking out for the old man on the grey mare. I slipped through the spaces up to the Morrígan as easy as I’d seen the pooka doing earlier.

Truth was, I expected it all to go to hell. I’d seen Jo fight the Morrígan She was faster and stronger than any human could be, and had a whole lotta years of practice under her belt. No way could I expect to break through her guard, and no way could somebody not have her back.

Except that was thinking like a good guy. That was thinking like someone with people to live for, instead of just a cause. That was thinking like somebody who didn’t want the world to end, insteada like somebody doing her damnedest to end it. Her army was there to kill Brigid’s, not to watch out for each other. Her ravens spun away across the sky, diving at some kinda choice pickings, and I seized the moment.

Maybe her black-feathered horse heard me coming. Maybe she finally saw Cernunnos and decided he was the best target on the field. Maybe a tree giant bashed into Imelda and knocked us one step the wrong way. I dunno. But insteada Jo’s rapier sliding through the Morrígan’s exposed back, she was half a foot outta line with me when I struck. I scraped a chunk of leather armor an’ rib flesh off her body, but it wasn’t a killing blow.

An’ that’s when things did go to hell.

The Morrígan forgot about Cernunnos and turned on me, screaming like a banshee the whole while. She was bleeding pretty good, her whole left side a torn-up mess, but there was madness in her eyes and she moved like she didn’t feel the pain. Her sword hammered against the rapier. Imelda’s quick feet kept me from getting dead, but there were a whole lotta bad guys pressed all around and nowhere friendly to go. I ducked a sword swing and lunged with the rapier again, scoring a tiny red line that she gave back in spades. My shirt was a cut-up mess, an’ only the chain mail armor was keeping me alive. Imelda backed up another couple of steps. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if I was gonna make it outta there in one piece.

When I looked back, the Morrígan was hanging off Cernunnos’s sword like a side of beef. He’d run her clean through, just what I’d been tryin’ ta do, except no way could I have lifted her toward the sky an’ howled triumph, too. I was a tough old coot, but nothing like that. The Morrígan wasn’t dead yet, still kicking and clawing at the sky as Cernunnos shook his raised arms and twisted the sword inside her.

The whole fight came to a stop under the sound of Cernunnos’s howling. It went out in a ripple around us, stillness washing over everybody. I kicked Imelda and she bounced around the Morrígan’s raven-black horse, getting us nice and close to the one guy everybody was about to try an’ kill. The other riders of the Hunt moved in too, ‘til we’d closed ranks around Cernunnos like some kinda honor guard.

Brigid’s army started cheering. Low at first, like they couldn’t hardly believe what they were seeing, and then louder and louder until they were lifting the clouds right outta the sky. Back in the day, when I’d played ball, a time or two I’d made a great interception or tackle that brought the crowd to its feet. I’d thought I’d known was it was like to be worshiped, feeling that energy comin’ off the fans. It was nothing, nothing at all, to the uplifting power of a triumphant army.

But the Morrígan’s army stayed quiet, an’ that was worse. Defeat could cry out as loud, maybe louder, than victory. Defeat was being wounded, broken in spirit, an’ it had a voice to it that winning couldn’t match. The Morrígan’s army didn’t have a voice at all, just a silence that rolled over the noise until everybody was quiet again after all. Focused silence, all of it concentrating on the Morrígan, dangling but not dead on Cernunnos’s sword. She was still reaching for the sky, an’ her whole army was looking where she was pointing.

Way too slowly, way too late, I looked too.

The blue was boiling, ruptures and bubbles letting starlight break through even in the middle’a the day. Clouds were coming together, darkening the sun, and a path of night fell outta the stars. Creatures like I’d never seen came tumbling down the path, falling like angels without wings. They cut the sky apart with screams, screams like all hope was lost an’ all that was left to them was vengeance. I only knew one story that fit that kinda pain. I dragged my eyes to the front of the oncoming madness, whispering words I knew were true: “And there before them rides a pale horse. Its rider’s name is Death, and Hell doth follow close behind.”

Brigid’s army scattered. Couldn’t say I blamed ‘em, but the Hunt held its ground while the Master came bearing down on us. Cernunnos said, “He is not,” so quiet I had ta look at him. He said, “He is not your death on a pale horse, old man, not the way you mean as you say it now. He is no devil as your young faith would have him be, nor are they angels who ride with him. Broken spirits, perhaps, and lost, but there was no War in Heaven fought and lost for the love of your god. He is no more death on a pale horse than I am, and perhaps less.”

“Yeah? Then what the hell is he?”

“A devourer, perhaps.” Cernunnos was still holding the Morrígan up, an’ his attention was all for the riders in the sky. “The devourer, perhaps—”

I muttered, “I like that,” under my breath. Devourer sounded like something that might take a bite outta me, but that sat better than the idea of him being my lord and master.

Cernunnos kept talking. I shut up and listened, ‘cause even with the amazing crazy life I’d led the last year, I didn’t often get to hear a god wax philosophical. “—for he has tasted gods and they have failed before him. He is an ending to the souls he takes, swallowing their essence so it feeds only himself, and gives nothing back to the boundless universe.”

“Ain’t that kinda what death is ?”

Cernunnos looked at me, green fire bright in his eyes. “After all you have seen at Joanne’s side, Master Muldoon, do you truly believe that all I offer to those who ride with me is an eternal nothingness? That any faith which sends a guide, be it a rider or a reaper or a ferryman, to walk a soul through the veil, has nothing to offer on the other side?”

I guessed my face said it all, ‘cause a sly grin curled one corner of Horns’s mouth before he nodded toward the oncoming rider. “Let us face the Devourer together, Master Muldoon, and—”